


Codas

by Only_Slightly_Obsessed (A_Stressed_Cupcake)



Series: If It's To Save You [3]
Category: Re:ゼロから始める異世界生活 | Re:Zero Starting Life in Another World (Anime)
Genre: Alternate Timelines, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Gen, inspired by season 2 episode 11, please read the other stories first, this is a canon divergence of a canon divergence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-13
Updated: 2021-02-20
Packaged: 2021-03-18 06:41:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 5
Words: 20,322
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29364174
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/A_Stressed_Cupcake/pseuds/Only_Slightly_Obsessed
Summary: Subaru doesn't know if the timelines continue after his deaths.If they do, this is what they may look like._______Or, alternate timelines and what other characters see.(ATTENTION: This is a companion piece to the stories presented in the "If It's To Save You" series. These are codas to the alternate timelines presented in the other stories in this series. Context is necessary and reading the main stories is thus highly recommended. Because each coda is self-contained, the work will remain marked as complete as it progresses.)
Series: If It's To Save You [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2138166
Comments: 46
Kudos: 78





	1. Coda #1: The Wasteland and the Void (by Reinhard Van Astrea)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This is a coda to the prologue of One Thing Left Unsaid.

Snow was neither a rarity nor especially interesting to him since the moment playing with snow had become  _ too childish _ for a  _ promising young man _ like him. But in that season, and in that place? 

He had known something was wrong from the moment his conversation with a fellow knight had been interrupted by the man being frozen solid in a matter of seconds and shattering as he hit the ground. He was ashamed to admit that he hadn’t suspected a thing up until that point. Reinhard would have loved to be able to say that he'd been having  _ a feeling of dread _ or  _ a premonition _ or something like that, but it really had been a normal day for him until that moment.

The cold spread along the road he was walking down, leaving frost on the grass and snowflakes being whipped around by the most freezing wind he'd ever felt.

He took off running. Not in the direction the cold was going, not to escape it, but directly towards its focus.

_ Find the source _ .

The source was found, indeed, after hours of running through a frozen wasteland of ice statues that so clearly used to be people.

He had never been so grateful to be far from home, but he knew he had to hurry. Before the cold reached that, too. It was already too late for so many people, and some he knew from sight long before he even thought about why they stood in and around an enormous crater in what had been an open field.

The first he ran into was Felix. He was crouched down, his hands hovering above a woman's clearly broken leg, his magic frozen forever into a strangely perfect bubble of ice around the woman's calf. She was being held up by another woman, younger than her and so very similar to her. They were locked in an eternal, comforting embrace, one face frozen in pain, the other in compassion, and Felix's face forever tense with worry.

Out of a half-destroyed wagon, Reinhard could spot the familiar figure of none other than Wilhelm Van Astrea. He couldn’t help himself from climbing into the wagon just to check that his eyes weren't playing tricks on him, but no. It was him, without a doubt. Something in his chest, which had been aching for some time, began to sting painfully. He retreated out the wagon and came face to face with yet another familiar statue.

A little ways behind the wagon, Julius carried a young man who appeared to be unconscious. His hands were clenched tight around the young man's shoulders and knees, with a distinctly protective posture. But what was more disturbing was Julius’s face. It had been frozen solid on the highest moment of alertness, his eyes moving to the center of the crater and his lips parting in a warning that had never found the time to leave them. He looked to be the only one around there who had seen it coming. 

If he had doubts about the culprit being a spirit before, that singular, strange reaction all but confirmed it.

After hours of seeing nothing move, he spotted something towering above the trees, above  _ him _ , and he knew exactly what it was when it looked at him with the glowing eyes of a beast. That beast was the source of the cold.

"Are you the one who's been freezing everything?" he shouted, putting every ounce of frustration he could manage into making his voice ring out above the blizzard.

The creature tilted its vaguely feline head: "I am. And you are the Master Swordsman, Reinhard."

"Reinhard Van Astrea." he specified, "Do not presume to call me by my name. Cease this attack immediately or I will be forced to take action against you."

It looked at him almost… sadly. 

"I know it pains you, but do. My daughter is dead. As per our contract, I will destroy this world. I will not stop because you tell me to."

A contract. It was, indeed, a spirit he was facing. Its  _ daughter _ …? The spirit looked familiar. So much bigger and so much more intimidating than the last time he'd seen it, but…

"You're…"

"I was known as Puck." said the beast. It didn’t sound angry. It just sounded sad.

"Lady Emilia's spirit." he murmured.  _ Daughter _ . It wasn’t hard to see what had happened. He felt a sting of grief, one of many that day. She was dead, and who knew what else had been destroyed in the spirit's rampage.

Suddenly, the beast's melancholy demeanor made sense. 

But it didn’t change what he had to do.

One hand on the hilt of the Dragon Sword, he made one last attempt at explaining what was boiling just under his skin: "I'm sorry. I must destroy you before you cause any further harm. You may despise me."

"There's no one I despise, Reinhard." sighed the spirit, "You are a true hero."

He didn’t correct the name that time.

The sword was drawn, but his arm trembled. The Beast of the End did not take kindly to indecision. It leaned in closer and, through its gaping jaw, Reinhard could almost feel the frozen souls of so many he'd passed on his way there, and so many more. 

The sword spritzed with righteous fury, and the first strike tore through the spirit's body like a knife through paper. The second strike cleared the blizzard for miles around him, washing every single snowflake away, to evaporate into a gentle mist. 

The grass, for the first time in hours, was soft under his feet. So soft that he let himself fall on it without hesitation, first to his knees, then lying on his stomach in the grass. There was no tickling of bugs on his back and no buzzing of bees in his ears. It would take some time for life to fully return to that open road.

And the one that had been lost would never return.

The news of the country being frozen over and of Reinhard saving what was left spread much too quickly for his liking. He took to travelling at night to return home, by foot, just in case a merchant decided to let it be known that Reinhard Van Astrea was still walking around, ready to answer all their questions.

He didn’t feel ready for much of anything.

He hadn’t checked how far the cold had spread and, at that point, there was only one thing on his mind.

There were no words to describe the sheer relief that washed over him when he finally arrived at his home to find it, and everyone within it, safe and sound. He wasn’t keen on breaking down in front of his lady but, when he saw her and the first thing she did was ask him what the hell had taken him so long, his legs just wouldn't respond to his commands anymore. He collapsed against a chair in the living room, burying his face into the soft fabric of the seat to hide the tears that were starting to spring from his eyes. There was no hiding the way his shoulders were shaking, though, and of course, she noticed.

“That tired, huh?” she commented, “You look pathetic. I don’t wanna see your kicked puppy face. Take a damn break.”

“It’s fine.” he murmured, muffled into his sleeve, “What do you need?”

He narrowly dodged the shoe that went flying towards his face.

“I need you to go to your room and not come back until you feel better. That’s an order. I don’t wanna see your face until it’s got an actual smile on it, got it?” 

“But-”

“I said it’s an order!” she yelled, “Go to sleep before I decide to drug your tea. Not that you’d know the difference. I still haven’t figured out how tea works.” she added, quietly.

He didn’t find it in himself to argue further, though why she was so insistent on him resting, he wouldn’t know. He wasn’t tired, physically speaking. He could have understood her confusion about his abnormal stamina better if only she hadn’t been actively testing out the extent of his power the entire time she’d been there. 

“Hey, did you go deaf when I wasn’t looking? I told you to  _ go _ , dammit!!”

She basically dragged him up to his feet and to the stairs, pushing him with all the strength she could muster: “I thought you said you’d follow orders, you idiot. Hurry up or I’ll tell the maid not to make dinner for you.”

“Of course. I apologise.” he stuttered, making his way up the start under his lady’s impatient glare.

“Good. I don’t wanna see you until tomorrow at least.”

“Of course.”

She waited until he was upstairs to yell after him.

“Reinhard?”

“Yes, my lady?”

“Rest!” she ordered. 

He fell asleep the moment his head touched the pillow. When he woke up, there was a wet stain where his eyes had been resting, a single ray of sunshine coming through the window, and a tray of food sitting beside the bed. 

Sleep had brought him a sense of clarity that strangely resembled a daze.

It was indescribable. If he’d been forced to describe it, he would’ve simply said it was  _ nothing _ . Not nothing in the sense of nothing wrong, nothing in the sense of nothing at all. There were no bad feelings. But there were no good feelings, either.

His chest felt like the void.

It grew and expanded with every second, eating through his body, leaving nothing but a terrifying numbness behind.

Before it could swallow him whole, he stood up to face the window and pulled the curtains wide open. The bedroom was facing west. The sun was streaming directly into it.

It must have been late afternoon by that point.

"Oh, I'm late…" he murmured to himself, but, when he went to leave the room, he found it locked from the outside. His eyes fell to the slip of paper under the door. 

The handwriting was immediately recognisable. It was stilted and childish, and the poor spelling all but confirmed who the author was.

_ See you tomorow mourning. _

He couldn’t stop the corners of his mouth from curving up.

"You haven’t been studying much, have you?" he sighed to himself, "Honestly. I should probably find you something a little more interesting to read."

He went back to sit on the windowsill. 

Reinhard looked outside again, only to find something… different. Sure, he hadn’t paid much attention, earlier, but…

Had the world outside always been so beautiful?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sometimes your boss has to scream mental health breaks into you, and that's okay too.
> 
> Welcome, everyone, to part 3 of "Rémy has no self-control". We have biscuits.
> 
> As I mentioned a few times, I actually really love Reinhard. Don't be surprised if he keeps popping up in these codas. There's no formula here, babey :D just angst, mostly. You know, cause Subaru isn't gonna be alive in any of these.  
> I am shifting the focus to the rest of the cast, and there are no rules this time. I'll try to change POV character every chapter :,)  
> Stay tuned, everyone.
> 
> -Rémy


	2. Coda #2: Hell is a Bad Day (by Felix Argyle)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This is a coda to chapter 2 of One Thing Left Unsaid.

Felix’s day had not started out in the best possible way.

Of course, he’d argue that would be impossible on a day dedicated to battling the Witch Cult. It would be difficult to feel anything resembling calm that morning. So yes, admittedly, he wasn’t having the best day, even before the fight started. 

It wasn’t just the fight, either. 

Frankly, his nerves were frayed past the point any sane person’s nerves should be even before he split off from the group to give the signal to attack. It might have shown on his face, at some point; it must have, in fact, because Julius stopped him to ask him if he was alright, and he didn’t do that lightly. He only backed off after Felix finally admitted he was more nervous than he looked. 

Felix had no idea why his anxiety spiked watching Julius leave for his post, but he chalked it up to being nervous for the battle.

That anxiety, though, might have been exactly the fuel that the tiniest spark of anger needed to ignite. And ignite it did, when he saw Subaru running away from the woods like his life depended on it.

Alone.

Maybe there were better ways to stop him than tugging on his jacket, but he failed to come up with some before his hand could reach out. 

He asked him where Julius was, not for nothing, and the dread began to make a terrible amount of sense when Subaru wheezed that he was injured. Badly. A part of him wanted to argue, wanted details, wanted to interrogate Subaru on why he always seemed to know so many things, but there was no time for that. He was a friend first and a healer second, and both of those instincts tugged him towards the woods. He had a job to do.

He let Subaru run in the opposite direction and let his legs carry him as fast as they could go towards his fellow knight’s post. Subaru was the one who had chosen that spot. There was a knowing look in his eyes when he talked about it, and it scared him just a little. 

He knew he was getting close when he had to climb over broken tree trunks and rocky ground, doing his best not to slip and fall while going as fast as that minimal amount of caution would allow. 

It was no use panicking. All he had to do was move fast, but carefully.  _ That _ was the fastest way to get there. If he fell and hurt himself, he would have to take a few precious moments to collect himself, and maybe even energy, and he was going to someone who needed that energy much more than he did.

When the clearing finally opened before him, his eyes were immediately drawn to a pool of blood and a pile of limbs. He almost screamed, but those robes were purple and the head that had rolled a few feet away was the Archbishop’s. 

Still, Julius wasn’t far off.

Curled up against the cliffside, with his cape bunched up over his right side, and covered in blood and dust. Felix couldn’t be sure, but his eyes appeared to be open. 

The rush of adrenaline that coursed through him was nothing short of miraculous, and he was there before he even realised it, his hands already reaching for the wound that seemed to pose the biggest problem: the one hidden under the impromptu bandage, to be precise. If Julius had judged that to be the most worrying wound, that was already a good starting point.

“Julius!” he called, “Can you hear me? I g- I got here as fast as I could, hold on.”

No answer, but his eyes were open. They were glazed over, granted, but there still seemed to be some sort of awareness behind them, which meant he was still alive. Which meant there was still hope.

Felix put every single bit of energy he could find within him into closing the wound on his chest.

“Hold on.” he repeated, under his breath, “Hold on, hold on, hold on…”

Julius’s chest expanded, tightened with pain, and then seemed to release all the air it had left as soon as the magic began to work. It made sense. It was a common reaction for patients who were in a lot of pain to suddenly relax when the magic began to take effect.

The skin and sinew were beginning to stitch themselves back together; the cracks in his ribs narrowed and faded away, and the wound closed, leaving nothing but drying blood behind it. 

But that was when he noticed that, after Julius had breathed out, he hadn’t breathed in again. 

It took him too long to move his hands away. He could hardly see Julius’s face anymore, through the thick veil of tears that were beginning to form over his eyes, but he could still see two little spots of dull amber where a ray of sunlight was hitting his eyes. His eyes were still open. They’d been open the entire time, but there was nothing behind them anymore. 

He wasn’t entirely sure when he’d started sobbing. It just happened, something just stabbed him in the back while he wasn’t looking; his own heart, probably, which raced furiously in an attempt to keep up with his sobbing breaths. 

He didn’t know how long it took before Subaru came back either but, from his perspective, it felt like mere minutes had passed between Julius’s death and the sound of someone hitting the ground behind him. Subaru must have tripped, or something. He was on his knees. When he started crawling over to them, Felix could see the faint trail of blood coming from there. 

He wanted to speak up. He wanted to tell Subaru exactly what was on his mind.

_ You just left him? _

It didn’t work. He couldn’t get more than two words out in between sobs. And yet, his mind was clear enough. 

“Forget it!” he hissed when Subaru couldn’t answer him, hastily drying his tears away with what little clean fabric was left on his sleeve, “Forget- why… why are you here so- so soon?”

“I got the fire stones.” Subaru stuttered, “Everyone is safe, I…”

“Not everyone.” he interrupted. The corpse sitting next to him was a testament to that. Subaru made no effort to hide his shame, but he still tried to explain himself. Felix wasn’t feeling up for explanations.

“Forget it! I said forget it!” he snapped.

He didn’t regret the outburst, not immediately. Not until Subaru slowly stood up and walked over to the Archbishop’s scattered pieces. He ignored those, though, focusing instead on the sword still lying beside them.

Felix felt his blood freeze. There were many reasons Subaru could choose to draw a sword at that moment, and all but one weren’t good. His fingers unconsciously tightened on Julius’s shirt. He really didn’t know who, among the four of them, was more unsafe at that moment. There was something tired and manic in Subaru’s eyes. 

The only good reason he could have for picking up Julius’s sword at that moment would have been to return it to its owner. But that option was quickly excluded the moment he headed for the woods instead of them. 

That excluded nearly every possibility he’d thought of. 

In his pessimistic mind, it left only one.

For the first time in what must’ve been an hour or two at least, Felix detached himself from Julius’s dead body and stood up. He couldn’t be sure of Subaru’s intentions, but he’d much rather keep him in his sights. 

No matter who it was, Felix did not trust a grieving person with a weapon.

He would not have trusted  _ himself _ with a weapon, at that moment. He’d been prepared to follow Subaru for a few hundred feet at least, but no. He stopped just a little after the corner of the cliffside and turned the sword in his hands a few times. It made Felix nervous.

But he didn’t panic until the moment Subaru angled it up to graze the underside of his chin. The muscles in his arm twitched up, unmistakably, and his movement was crystal clear for a split second,  _ stop _ .

He couldn’t reach him in time. All he could do was scream.

“ _ No!! _ ”

The sword stabbed up. It sliced, in the blink of an eye, through skin, muscle and bone, emerging bloody and still just as sharp from the top of Subaru’s head. It seemed like years before he fell.

Felix wasted no time.

Magic spritzed around his hands before he was even near him, but he already knew it was hopeless. There was no movement. There was no breath. There was nothing.

He couldn’t spare any more energy.

His breath came in short and panicked and left only in the form of sobbing. There was a single question on his mind.

_ Why? _

_ Why did he do that? _

_ Why now? _

_ Why like this? _

_ Why here? _

One question, containing dozens of questions, and each of them a nail in his legs, keeping him rooted to the spot, stuck between a rock and a corpse. Two. Two corpses. Two, and both alive when he’d reached them. 

Felix could clearly recall a time when he believed no amount of effort was too much effort. He’d had to wake up, eventually. Cut the losses, count his blessings.

It was harder when there were many losses and no blessings. Nothing around him but corpses and the memory of their eyes.

He had dragged Subaru back to the clearing. It didn’t feel right to leave either of them there. Julius’s by that point torn, dusty and bloodied cape was not enough to cover both of them, but Felix had his own cape to spare. It got cold as it got dark, but he wasn’t feeling much of it. He wasn’t feeling much of anything, in fact, sitting between the bodies of his two friends with his knees to his chest. He was stuck. He didn’t want to leave them there, but he was growing increasingly desperate for a friendly touch, and no one was there. No one alive, at least.

He was nearly certain he had talked to the bodies at some point, but he genuinely could not remember.

It was only because of the sunset that he knew how much time had passed when he finally heard someone coming towards them. Some _ thing _ , he would’ve said, if not for the echo of childlike laughter and the voices of people who were so clearly excited by a long, difficult day.

He pulled his knees closer to his chest. He didn’t feel like talking anymore. All he wanted to do was vanish, and preferably reappear at home with however many friends he had left. But those voices were not those of anyone from his camp. They sounded familiar, though: childish and light, one graver than the other. When it clicked, he wanted to disappear. 

They must've come to retrieve Julius.

He stood on shaking legs. He didn’t want to be found sitting there. 

“Where did they go?” squeaked a little voice, too close for him to meet them halfway.

So he wasn’t found sitting there, but he was, indeed, found standing above two covered bodies. He walked away as soon as he’d told the knights not to look at the bodies.

_ I can’t do this now. _

He passed most of them without listening to a word they were saying. Until one of them put himself in front of him. Felix looked up at him with dead eyes, fully prepared to move him if he didn’t move himself, until the knight spoke up.

“Where do you think you’re going?”

“I was sitting there for hours.” Felix deadpanned, “This isn’t my job anymore. I need to regroup with my camp.”

The knight didn’t let him walk away: “You want to tell us what happened here first?”

“Do you  _ need  _ me to tell you?”

“Yes, actually.” he answered, placing himself in front of Felix again.

“Fine.” he said, “Subaru ran out of the woods a few hours ago telling me to go help Julius, because he was injured. I was too late. When Subaru came back, he excused himself and when I found him again, he’d stabbed himself in the head.”

The knight fell silent. Felix gave him a half smile that was probably scarier than anything the man had seen that day: “Is that enough for you?”

“Now, wait a moment.” said another knight behind him, “You expect me to believe that story?”

“I have no reason to lie.”

“No, you wouldn’t. Unless, of course, you had something to do with it.”

Felix felt his stomach drop: “Excuse me?”

“Do you really expect us to believe that the hero of the day just offed himself without explanation?” another man chimed in. They were all from the Anastasia camp. They must’ve been. Felix didn’t know them by name.

His teeth started to chatter with rage: “Are you accusing me of… what the hell? Why would I ever want to kill Subaru?”

“Why wouldn’t you?” scoffed the man, “He’s the hero of the day. Anything you can use to make your camp look better is suspicious. And what of Julius, here?”

Oh, so he was bringing Julius into it?

“What of him?” he asked through gritted teeth.

“How can we know it was the Archbishop that killed him?”

“ _ What? _ ” he hissed, “Didn’t you see him? How could I have-”

“There was no mortal wound.” he pointed out, “Anything could have killed him.”

“What is happening here?”

Felix could have cried. Finally, help. 

Wilhelm didn’t need to push his way through the knights. They moved to let him through without being asked to. Only the man towering above Felix didn’t move. Felix tried to take the opportunity to sneak past him and talk to Wilhelm, but the man, bolder by far than anyone else there, grabbed his arm and tugged him back before he could get too far: “I asked you a question, sir.” he said, calmly.

“I gave you an answer.” Felix retorted, “Let go of me.”

“You gave me a question. Do you expect me to believe that story you just spat at us?”

The knight’s voice was rising in a terrifying crescendo, but it froze right before it could turn into a yell when he noticed the blade that had found its way up to his throat when he wasn’t looking. 

“I don’t mean to start a war,” Wilhelm stated, just behind him, “but if you don't let go of his arm, you're going to lose yours.”

The temperature seemed to drop.

The man finally let go of his arm, but not of his stupid theory: “Forgive me, sir. I have good reason to believe he was directly responsible for at least one of the losses we’ve suffered.”

“No, you don’t.” muttered Felix, “You have no proof of anything.”

He ignored him: “He was the only one present when Mr. Natsuki allegedly  _ stabbed himself in the head _ , as he put it.”

“I didn’t  _ put it _ that way, you asked me what happened and I answered you!” Felix snapped, “How dare you? Do you seriously think I would’ve sat there for hours with him if I’d killed him? I could’ve just walked away and-”

“-and you still would’ve been the closest one there.” the knight interrupted, “Why in the world would someone like him choose that exact moment to end his life? Why right there, close enough that you could see it? Why, conveniently, right after he found Julius dead? And who the hell offs themselves by stabbing themselves in the head??”

He looked so damn proud. Like he’d cracked the case wide open, based on what he assumed about someone he wasn’t close enough to to call him by his name. There were a lot of things about that knight that irked Felix, but the way he presumed to know Subaru was a step too far in the wrong direction. Felix realised too late that his right palm was bleeding from digging his nails into it. He ignored it.

He tried to take a step forward, ready to give the knight a piece of his mind, but Wilhelm put his arm out to stop him before he could. He had sheathed his sword, but that didn’t make anyone feel less nervous. 

“That is your assumption.” said the old man, “But, if you’d paid attention, you would have known that Subaru-dono was concerned about the possibility of the Archbishop possessing him. And of course, if you knew him at all, you would know that his concern is not to be taken lightly.”

Felix flinched. He hadn’t thought about that. It made too much sense. It explained why Subaru was acting so strange all of a sudden. But...

“But why would the Archbishop stab himself with a spirit sword?” the knight retorted.

No, that wasn’t Felix’s concern, but he had the answer to that one: “That was not the Archbishop. That was Subaru knowing he was going to lose control of himself entirely. Not that  _ you _ would know, but I don’t think there was anyone Subaru despised more than him. If he knew he was about to turn into him, I…” he trailed off.

_ I guess I can see why he did that. _

The question on Felix’s mind was another. Unfortunately, the knight caught on quickly: “I don’t know how his spirit could have survived being cut to pieces, though. Do you, Sir Felix?”

He felt everyone’s eyes on him. And none of them looked at him with kindness. 

He shivered before he could stop himself: “I don’t know.” he admitted, “But… who knows how long he’d been possessing Subaru. For all we know, he could’ve been dormant.”

“I don’t believe that.” the knight proudly declared. 

Felix gave him a tired, furious mockery of a smile: “That’s too bad for you, then.”

The smile faded as quickly as it had come when a scream echoed from the clearing. A woman’s scream. 

“Oh.” murmured another knight, “It seems the lady caught up with us.”

There was only one lady with that group. 

The blood drained from Felix’s face so quickly that it almost made him dizzy. 

And, of course, the vulture that was that knight noticed it right away: “What’s the matter? Crocodile tears?”

Felix was tired. Too damn tired to even think of a good answer. Thankfully, he didn’t have to.

“Enough of this!” snapped Wilhelm, and the shiver that ran through all the knights present was visible from a mile away, “I have never known such insolence. You will refrain from attacking my lady’s knight further or I will have to settle this with you, personally.”

If his words didn’t speak loud enough, the way his hand hovered over the hilt of his sword certainly did.

The knight may have been arrogant, but no one in the kingdom was stupid enough to willingly challenge the Sword Demon in a duel. The man lost a few shades of colour on his cheeks: “My apologies.”

“It’s not me you owe your apologies to, boy.”

Reluctantly, the knight turned to Felix: “My apologies.” he repeated, between his teeth.

Whatever satisfaction he might have felt on another day was drowned in a sea of numbness and anger. There were no words he felt strong enough to speak. He just nodded.

Wilhelm removed his hand from the hilt.

“We’re leaving. We need to regroup.” he declared, “I do hope you meant your apology. If I ever find out you insisted on these accusations, I expect to find you in the arena. Is that clear?”

The knight visibly gulped: “Understood.”

Felix almost didn’t feel the hand on his back, leading him away from the group, until they were far enough that the knights’ chatter and Lady Emilia’s distant wails grew silent. That was when Wilhelm finally talked to him again. 

“Nothing will happen to you, boy. I believe you. You are innocent, I know.”

His voice was a little cracked when he found the strength to reply: “They think it was me.” he murmured. 

Wilhelm shook his head. “No, they don’t. Not really. Not the man who accused you, at least.” 

“How do you know that?”

“He’s from the Anastasia camp.” he replied, “I know he’s already had spats with Julius about how aggressive their publicity campaigns should be. You know Julius didn’t believe in winning by eliminating competition? Well, that man does. That situation was simply too convenient for him not to accuse you.”

His hand moved, almost unconsciously, to squeeze Felix’s shoulder reassuringly: “They will not touch you. Lady Crusch will protect you no matter what. Lady Emilia can be reasoned with.”

“I wouldn’t be so sure about Lady Anastasia.”

Wilhelm cut that thought short.

“She can take you when I’m dead.” 

True to his word, Wilhelm refused to leave his side on the way back. No one dared to approach him. 

Looking up at the night sky, Felix was about ready to say goodbye to the worst day he could remember thus far. Looking at the lights of the mansion in the distance, he was ready to explain the whole thing to his lady.

If only he’d known that the night wasn’t over yet, he would have dreaded those lights.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy Valentine's Day, everyone :D  
> Last year, on this day, I posted a chapter where a main character got stabbed. I guess it's a trend for me by now to write the angsty stuff on Valentine's Day. Can't say I'm surprised :,)
> 
> I do have to say writing Wilhelm "don't talk to me or my kids ever again" Van Astrea is always a joy for me, but also... yeah. There was no way this day was gonna go well for Felix.
> 
> -Rémy


	3. Coda #3: Convalescence (by Emilia)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This is a coda to chapter 3 of One Thing Left Unsaid.

Emilia knew an emergency when she saw it. 

The two men that had come to warn her spoke gravely enough to convince her and more. 

When she reached the village, she wasn’t surprised to see them again. She  _ was _ , however, surprised by the hooded man’s eagerness to defend her and include her within the rapidly forming groups of villagers. He had enough confidence in her to entrust her with the safety of the village children. She couldn’t be more proud. Her heart fluttered when he ducked his head to greet her.

The same man reappeared moments before she could board the wagon with them, though, asking her if he could perform a quick inspection. She agreed, of course, but she was thinking nothing of it until he pried the floorboards off with his bare hands. 

Out of the hole in the floor, he ripped what looked like a simple bag, if not for a soft red glow coming from inside. Several, actually. Like little glowing spheres.

Like firestones.

Emilia felt the blood drain from her face: “Are… are those…”

“Yes. But this is the only thing unaccounted for.” he assured them, “You’re all safe now, provided you leave immediately.”

The man climbed out of the wagon, told them to stay safe. One of the children clung to her side before he was even gone. Emilia ran her hand across the little boy’s shoulders, as reassuringly as she could manage.

She was ashamed to admit how happy it made her.

It wasn’t a quiet ride, by any means.

If she looked out the back of the wagon, she could so clearly see the fight raging on, not fifty feet away from them. The flashes of fire from the cultists’ attacks were nothing compared to the loud  _ boom  _ of the explosions, which made the wagon tremble and creak. With every explosion, the children’s grip around her tightened a bit more. And so did her grip around them.

She promised to keep them safe, but the children weren’t having it.  _ They _ were keeping  _ her _ safe, they swore, and one of them let slip why.

_ Subaru, what did you do? _ she wondered. 

She hadn’t seen him in so long. What had he been doing that entire time? Had he recovered alright? She recalled Ram’s expression when she had opened the letter coming from the Capital, the only news they’d had from him in days, only to find it blank. Ram had been so angry at the time. Only to show up that morning and declare that it had been a simple mistake on his part,  _ one of many _ , as she put it.

“Barusu is an idiot.” she had stated, “But he means you no harm.”

To say that Emilia was relieved to know that would have been an understatement. Of course, it wouldn’t have been the first time Subaru got in trouble because of culture shock, and it probably wouldn’t be the last. At least, she hoped he was well enough to keep making mistakes. When she had asked Ram, she had assured her that he was doing better than any of them could expect. 

Still, she would have liked to see him.

“It’s okay.” she murmured, more to herself than the children. 

_ You can explain everything to me after this. _

They only stopped after the explosions did. She let out a heavy sigh of relief. 

“We’re safe…” she whispered, “We’re safe.”

Once the children had calmed down enough to let go of her arms, she hopped off the wagon and ran up to a group of soldiers heading back towards the village: “Excuse me?” she called out, “Are you going back?”

“There are still some people there.” one of them explained, “We should give them the good news and regroup.”

“I’ll come with you.” she offered, “I’d like to check in on them as well.”

Some of the soldiers didn’t seem to like the idea, but no one told her to stay back and she boarded another wagon alongside the little mages from the Anastasia camp. One of them climbed on her shoulders, mid-conversation, and she didn’t find it in herself to complain about it. 

She had good reason to suspect that Subaru was with the group still at the village. For a few reasons. Firstly, the children seemed to have spoken with him recently. Secondly, she knew he’d been allying himself with the various other camps in their efforts to kill the White Whale, and it seemed unlikely they would leave him behind. Therefore, if he wasn’t with the group she had just joined, he must have been in the other group. 

“I thought we’d told them to meet us halfway!” whined Mimi, draping herself dramatically across Emilia’s shoulders, “This isn’t even close to halfway there!”

“Well, I think they have every right to rest.” her brother retorted, “You saw that guy. If you had to fight him, you’d be tired too.”

Mimi groaned.

Emilia gave the twins an awkward smile: “How many people did we leave behind, exactly?”

“Four?” Mimi shrugged, resting her chin on top of her head, “Two to fight him, and two for emergencies. A healer and a getaway guy.”

That was a lot less people than she expected. But that didn’t leave many roles for Subaru to fill. He wasn’t the healer, surely. So, either he wasn’t there at all, he was driving, or…

A shiver ran down her spine: “Do you remember their names?”

“Mmm, not all of them. One’s Julius.”

That still left just as many options: “Fighting, I assume?” 

“Yup. It's all good, though. He knows what he's doing. Then there’s Felix, and a merchant guy whose name I can never remember…”

Her heart squeezed: “Yes…?”

“Oh, and Subaru!”

“O-Oh, really? What did he do?”

“He was the bait.”

Emilia thought she would faint right then and there: “The  _ bait _ ??”

“Mimi, don’t put it like that!” her brother scolded, “He just… had to lead the Archbishop somewhere else, where we had the advantage…”

He paused for a second.

“Yeah, he was bait.” he admitted, quietly.

Nevermind fainting, Emilia thought she would have a heart attack: "Is he okay?"

"Oh yeah!" he assured her, "He made it to the ambush. Plus, he isn’t really there to fight, per se. He just has to witness the fight so Julius can see."

To say she felt confused would be a massive understatement. Since when could Julius not see? And what did watching the fight have to do with solving that problem?

She chalked it up to complex strategies made by more skilled leaders. As long as he stayed out of the fight, he would probably be alright. But staying out of it wasn’t like him. She would know.

It occurred to her that Subaru and Julius were apparently within one mile of each other again, and that was worrying enough on its own. Adding on to that the fact that a part of the plan revolved on Subaru staying out of a fight, she was starting to be concerned.

Still, everyone else seemed to have faith in them.

Emilia remained quiet the rest of the way there.

The moment she knew something was wrong was when she heard who was on the team present at Arlam Village. 

The moment everyone else knew something was wrong was when they were greeted by a young man Emilia didn’t know and a very bloody Felix. 

They were conversing, quietly, but it was rather one-sided. The young man, dressed in green, was clutching his hat to his chest, speaking in hushed tones. Felix was in his uniform, minus the cape, but it was almost completely drenched in drying blood on the front. He stared ahead at the approaching group with eyes that she could only describe as  _ dead. _

Mimi was still perched on Emilia’s back. She slipped away and fell backwards before anyone could catch her. 

The one who dared to speak first, though, was the young knight standing next to her: “What… what happened here?”

“I think you know.” said Felix, completely deadpan. That terrifying composure didn’t last, though. The moment his eyes met Emilia’s, he seemed to crumble, lowering his head and covering his face with one hand; the other hand lingered near his trembling shoulders, almost imperceptibly pointing at the woods behind him.

That was when she noticed the dark traces on the ground. Little droplets, fallen all the way from the woods to the two young men in front of her. The merchant’s hands, too, were bloodied, only on his palms. 

Suddenly, they were closer. Emilia hadn’t even felt herself start to run. It just… happened. 

She sprinted past them, running where Felix was pointing, hardly aware of herself or of the voices calling out to her. She was used to voices all around her.

She followed the trail of blood for less than a minute before she had to stop dead in her tracks to avoid stepping in the massive stain in the dirt. 

Up ahead, at its center, lay two covered bodies. 

There was no mistaking it: they were bodies, very still and very bloody, though one of them, especially, looked to have been showered with it. Worse, it was red. It was fresh.

She found the courage to step on the bloodstain, though the thought made her sick, and knelt between the two. 

The one on the left was cleaner, but the cape that covered it was dusty and ripped in a few places. She reached out with trembling hands to the top of the cape and pulled it to the level of her knees. 

Light purple hair, red at the tips, elegant features on an almost gray skin, and rips and tears in the back of his shirt. Julius. 

She let out a gasp that resembled a scream and pulled the cape back over his face. Already, she felt sick. She didn’t know what could have happened to him, but she didn’t have the strength to examine the rest of the body and find out.

Emilia turned her head away, but that only meant she caught sight of the other body. The one nearly drenched in fresh blood. And, of course, by exclusion… 

She was already sobbing before she reached her hand out. Her tears were already falling before she grabbed hold of the cape, in the least bloody spot she could find, and pulled it away.

It wasn’t until she looked at the corpse that she broke down completely. 

With spots of dried blood and dirt in his dark, messy hair and an almost bluish coloration to his parted lips, Subaru almost seemed to be gasping for air. It wasn’t hard to understand why when she looked a little lower than his face and found the deep gash going from the left side to the front of his neck. 

She reached out to touch his cheek and found it cold, but not cold enough. It hadn’t been long. 

Maybe it was that detail that broke the dam. Maybe it was just her emotions finally catching up to the sight before her eyes. Either way, it was too much.

Emilia screamed.

They found her less than a minute later, wailing her sorrow to the sky above and clinging to Subaru like her life depended on it. 

There was a frenzy of people all around her: in front of her, staring at her, behind her, revealing Julius’s corpse, beside her, talking in hushed tones about what could have happened. She didn't listen. She couldn’t even hear them over the sound of her own voice, spilling out of her chest, uncontrollable and painful. 

Her lungs were beginning to burn by the time they managed to pry her away from the body and sit her down with some water and some lukewarm words of reassurance. 

It was more to get her out of the way, really.

The first time she felt any kind of solace was when she walked away from the group on her own, away, away from the heavy air and the smell of blood and the tears of others.

She hugged her knees to her chest, so tightly that her skin turned white under her fingers, the last rays of the sun on her face and a single question on her mind.

_ Who did this? _

She really should have called Puck earlier. She didn’t want to disturb him so late in the afternoon, but she was growing increasingly desperate for some genuine reassurance. There was no hiding it. She wanted, so badly, to be consoled. On her own, there was no guarantee she could make herself feel any better.

She could picture dead faces in her mind even with her eyes open.

But then, they were so fresh in her memories that that was hardly a surprise. Still. She was beginning to feel the exhaustion of screaming until her lungs were empty and shaking like she'd been trapped under the surface of a frozen lake; a deep exhaustion, deeper than any she'd felt in a long time. It came from the inside of her soul, from her bones, from her heart, which seemed to beat more weakly than usual. Was it any wonder, then, that she began to earnestly wish to sleep?

It wasn’t the place to sleep. She stood on shaking legs to finally rejoin the group on their way back. 

Four knights had kindly offered their own capes to give the bodies a more decent covering. She couldn’t tell them apart anymore. 

Maybe it was better that way.

A search for the murderer was immediately launched. The merchant, Otto, and Felix had been cleared almost immediately by way of giving each other a solid alibi and the most probable conclusion anyone could draw was that Subaru had been ambushed. 

She really hoped they could find the culprit, soon. As soon as possible.

They held a funeral two days later. Just one. They had considered having one for each of their fallen heroes, but Felix, of all people, objected, declaring that it was only fair that they should follow up on their final decision to get along. Emilia wondered what they would have thought of it but, ultimately, she had to agree with him. 

It was a surprisingly silent ceremony, considering the amount of people that showed up, including four out of five of the royal candidates and most of their respective entourage. But then, no one seemed to have any words left to say. When she tried to offer her condolences to Anastasia, she only received a cold glance and a colder, one-syllable response in return. Having her respond at all was more than she’d expected. 

The Crusch camp offered their hospitality during the funerals but, unwilling to intrude, she decided to leave immediately afterwards, taking Subaru’s body with her, along with the unconscious body of a girl that bore an uncanny resemblance to Ram.

Speaking of Ram, she was a bit worried. Her attempts to contact her and Roswaal had all failed, and the only reply she’d received had come from a woman she hadn’t seen in months, stating that they had yet to return.

On her way back to the mansion, Emilia was faced with a choice. She could ride inside the carriage, next to the nameless blue-haired girl, or outside, next to the driver. Her eyes flicked back and forth, indecisively. 

“What’s wrong?”

She snapped out of her trance to find Felix beside her.

“Oh, nothing.” she assured him, “Just… um…”

He looked to be doing better than before, at least. His eyes had some life in them, and all traces of blood were gone from his uniform. The fact that he was well enough to even ask her that question made her feel a little better about talking to him again after the funerals. He hadn’t spoken much then, just like everyone else, but he  _ had _ broken down crying at one point and she had been standing right there, so the lingering awkwardness around him was partly justified.

She had no idea how to explain her concern in a way that didn’t sound stupid. Fortunately, she didn’t have to.

“Do you want company on the way back?” he guessed.

“Sort of. Yes.”

“Well, I can’t help with that. But I’m sure you’ll find someone willing to ride with you.”

Her heart sank: “I’m not so sure of that. But it’s okay, it’s only a few hours. Then I’ll be back home. Plus, Puck will be awake for more than half the trip, so that’s not so bad.”

“Mh, if you’re sure.” he shrugged, “You’re absolutely certain you don’t wanna stick around a while longer? We’re a bit too busy here to follow you to your camp, but at least there’s more people here.”

His eyes glazed over for just a moment, before lighting up with the spark of his unusual wisdom: “You know, Lady Emilia, I can heal wounds very quickly. And not just me, but so many other healers around here. Why do you think we have an infirmary?”

“Because…” she started, but she stopped dead in her tracks. That was a very good question, actually. She’d seen some of the Crusch camp’s healers stitch a severe puncture wound back to smooth skin in a matter of seconds. Why did they need an infirmary?

Felix’s tail flicked with pride: “Did that question stump you? Let me answer it for you, then.”

He took a seat on the retractable ladder leading up to the carriage: “Convalescence. That’s why. Never,  _ ever _ underestimate a patient’s need for rest and care. Sending them off as soon as they’re healed is the equivalent of repairing a machine just enough to keep it working, instead of performing all the necessary steps to ensure it’s good as new. The first machine was repaired in a matter of minutes, and it’ll fall apart in a matter of hours. The second machine was repaired in a week, and it’ll work perfectly for years to come.”

She had unconsciously leaned closer to him just to listen more closely. It didn’t seem to bother him.

“So, you see…” he grinned, “You see now, why I asked you if you wanted to stay a little longer? That’s not to say it will make you feel better. I just need you to tell me, honestly, whether you’d feel better braving the trip now and reuniting with your friends at your mansion, or staying here a while longer. There’s no shame, Lady Emilia. I will fully support either choice, because I don’t know you well enough to tell you which is right for you. But I just need you to be honest with yourself about which one it is, and to know that staying here is always an option. You  _ are _ still our ally. As long as that remains true, you’re welcome here.”

Emilia paused.

She took one final look inside the carriage, past Felix’s shoulder, and caught a flash of blue hair gleaming in the afternoon light. For some reason, that single ray of light was enough to move her.

She held her head up, proudly, and took a respectful bow to the knight: “Thank you again for your kindness, but I think I know what I want to do now.”

Felix’s ears twitched: “And what would that be?”

“I want to go home.” she declared, “You were all so kind to me, and I’m grateful, but I think I’m ready to return home now. I have a lot of things to do and, to tell you the truth, I feel as ready as I’ll ever be to do everything I must. I don’t want to delay it any further.”

Smiling his usual smile, Felix jumped up from his seat and returned the bow: “Good luck, Lady Emilia. And a good journey. Please, stay in touch.”

“I will.” she promised.

Two carriages left for the mansion that afternoon. The one in the front carried a nameless girl and a lady in white; the one in the back contained nothing but the coffin of a dead hero. 

Emilia sat inside, next to the girl. As long as she had sunlight, she studied every detail of her face, her hair, her neck. She really was, all in all, identical to Ram, safe for the colour of her hair. And such a lovely colour it was. 

When the loneliness that sundown always brought finally washed over her, Emilia sat a little closer to her. Then closer. Then closer still, until the outside of her right thigh was brushing against the pillow. 

She had something to tell her. 

Quietly, she said: “You know, I would like to know your name. I know you belong in the mansion, somehow, because… well, I don’t know, actually, but you look just like Ram and I…”

She sighed: “Nevermind that. Oh, and don’t worry, I retrieved that chain you had on you. It’s yours, isn’t it? Well, if it isn’t yours, no one claimed it. Oh well. You’ll just have to tell me if it’s yours. And… maybe your name. I really hope you remember it.”

She brushed the girl’s hair away from her eye, absent-mindedly: “You look so peaceful. I’m very sorry if you actually have nothing to do with us. I promise, if I find any evidence that you have family somewhere else, I will return you to them immediately. But really, I’d prefer it if you could tell me yourself. I want to get your name back. And your memories, and everyone else’s, too. I don’t know if it’s possible, but…”

She trailed off. When she set her hand on the girl’s head, she almost seemed to lean into the touch and, although it was probably just a bump in the road, it made Emilia a little happy. It was like riding with the children all over again. It made her want to know the girl even more.

“I will do my best to save you, and everyone else. Everyone who lost a piece of themselves. And then I’ll ask for your name in return.”

She stared at the moon outside. 

“That’s a promise.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Pro tip: when you read all these codas, uh... don't think about what happens later in the plot??? This is the second time I've been the incarnation of the "hitting someone with a stop sign" meme, except the stop sign is canon and the guy who's about to be hit is Felix and Emilia thinking that their day can't get any worse.
> 
> But I like to think that she saved Rem and they became friends again and had a PROPER funeral for Subaru with the twins present, because come on :(
> 
> -Rémy


	4. Coda #4: The Missing Pieces (by Crusch Karsten)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This is a coda to chapter 2 of Cold Tea.

She had known something was wrong for quite some time. There had been a growing feeling of dread in her stomach.

She hadn’t listened.

At that time,  _ wrong _ was all she could feel.

Everywhere she went, everywhere her muscle memory took her,  _ wrong _ , screamed her mind. Her body knew her way around when her mind didn’t, but there were things it could never return to her. The sound of a voice, the names of her friends, the figure of people she’d known for years.

She knew many things about herself, but only in theory. She knew that she was a candidate for the throne, she knew of her four rivals, but she could not picture any of their faces in her mind. The silver-haired girl, Emilia, had almost been a blessing.

The real blessings, though, were one on her right and one on her left. 

An old man with two swords at his sides and a knight that carried none. Inherent contradictions, in a way. Strangers who knew her better than she knew herself at that moment. 

The old man introduced himself as Wilhelm. The knight introduced himself as Felix, after he calmed down. That wasn’t immediately. He was already upset before she woke up but, when she asked him for his name, he was downright devastated.

She felt bad, of course, but it was worse than that. Underneath the cold numbness and fear that she’d been drowning in from the first moment she could remember, a furious spark of protective rage refused to let those icy waters snuff it out. It was so small, and yet so fierce, and it made her good hand reach out to touch the knight where his neck met his shoulder. She really didn’t know why, but it wasn’t difficult to piece together what had happened when a stranger’s touch felt so familiar. 

A missing piece. 

She was missing a piece. Not just her arm, that problem was solved quickly enough, a different, arguably more important piece of herself. 

And, when she found herself in a room full of people that had all their pieces, it made her want to run away. But where? Nowhere she could think of, and she stayed there. Out of place. 

_ Wrong _ .

Everything felt wrong, except for what she touched. The only part of her that still remembered was her skin, her bones, her muscles. They remembered the feeling of the chair behind her back, they remembered the way from the garden to her chambers; most of all, they remembered what to do when Felix burst into tears on the first night back home. Her hands moved without thinking, and it felt like the tiniest piece of her was back when they were holding his. 

It was an infinitesimally small piece that she had regained, a single blade of grass in a forest, but it was a piece all the same. If she kept searching, eventually, the forest would be a forest again, and not a wasteland. Indeed, she regained another small, tiny piece later that night, when she unconsciously made her way out to a balcony and smiled to herself at the empty glass that had been left on the table there. Another piece every time someone called her by her name. Another piece every time she could remember her way to a room without any help. A piece the next morning, with a cup of tea offered by Wilhelm. A piece when Felix hugged her almost by accident and she felt no discomfort at all. A piece when she laid eyes on the unconscious face of a blue-haired girl.

The pieces piled up into a tiny little stack. She couldn’t connect all of them yet, but she had people around with more pieces to give her. In time, by talking and asking, she would regain those pieces too.

Or so she had hoped.

When she had asked Felix what was wrong, that morning, he’d brushed it off as being tired. It made enough sense to her, when he explained that it was normal for him to feel like that when he used his magic too much, that she decided not to question it further. Some part of her wanted her to, but logic was all she had, and logic said to leave him be.

As it turned out, questioning it would have done nothing anyway. It didn’t make her feel better for ignoring it, though.

As Felix reached out for her and she instinctively held her hand out to him, all she could feel was a pervasive, infinite cold. Holding his icy hand, she felt as though she would never be warm again. 

The rags, the tea, the medicine, the healers, none of it helped. The cold came from the inside of his soul, from a place no one could reach. Still, though he ignored everything warm, Felix clung to her hand like a lifeline. Like it was the only warm thing around. 

He did the same anytime Wilhelm touched his forehead or his arms. He followed the touch after it left. 

It made her inexplicably sad and inexplicably happy that he was clinging to them so much. 

“I’m here.” she replied, anytime he called out to see if they were still there, and she held his hand just a little tighter. His grip was growing weaker, though the desperation in it was palpable. 

When he finally fell asleep, late in the afternoon, she didn’t let go. She didn’t even move, in case it woke him up. 

Wilhelm was just as considerate: “I pray this means he isn’t feeling the curse anymore.” he said, just under his breath.

She nodded.

“I will pray with you.” she murmured.

“My lady?”

“Yes?”

“I hope that you know how much it means to the both of us that you are here.”

She couldn’t answer him beyond shaking her head slightly, in disbelief rather than denial. He must have interpreted it as denial, though, because he insisted: “It does. I can’t thank you enough for choosing to stay with him. It isn’t easy to stand so proudly at someone’s side in their final hours. You are truly, unequivocally strong, my lady, and everything you’ve been doing only reinforces that my loyalty is beyond earned. You have asked me to tell you how you used to behave before your memories were stolen, and I swore to tell you all I could, so I will tell you: you behave so differently that a passing acquaintance might fail to recognise you. And still, every virtue that makes you the long beloved leader of this camp hasn’t been tarnished. It would be foolish of anyone not to commend you for that.”

Silence fell again, safe for the sound of Felix’s laboured breaths. She wasn’t entirely sure how to respond to that. With the exception of a question: “Where is this coming from, Sir Wilhelm?”

His eyes grew distant and she almost regretted asking him so directly. But he didn’t seem upset by what she’d said, only a bit lost in his memories, as he often was those days.

“I told no one about this…” he started, “...but, when the White Whale was defeated, and I finally found it in myself to speak the words I’d held in my heart for years, I promised myself I wouldn’t hold my tongue anymore. It’s pointless to live with people you would give everything to see happy, and not tell them that that’s how you feel. It’s pointless to say those words when they can no longer hear them. So, while you can hear me, I will tell you every reason why I am unendingly loyal to you and to this camp. I’m not sure he will, and some part of me hopes he will not, but, should Felix wake up again, I will tell him everything I have to tell him while he can still hear me. I know the feelings you hold towards the both of us are not exactly the same as they used to be, but I implore you to speak up as well. Believe me when I say that the regret of not saying goodbye continues to burn long after its ashes are scattered to the wind.”

Crusch felt her thumb stroke the back of Felix’s hand before she knew it. 

“I will.” she promised. 

He looked out the window: "We will find whoever was responsible, eventually. But now isn’t the time. I realise that."

She had one final question for him.

"You say that like it's something I've brought up before," she pointed out, "so tell me, and be honest. The me that remembers… would she have stopped you?"

Wilhelm’s blue eyes gave a furious spark.

"With all due respect, my lady, she would have joined me."

He did wake up, eventually. 

Only minutes after they’d lost all hope of his eyes ever opening again, to be exact, he gasped awake, clenching Crusch’s hand so tightly it hurt. He looked like he was finally breathing again after being held underwater for a long time. He only calmed down when she placed her other hand on his shoulder.

“Easy. Please, don’t exert yourself.” she said.

Felix began to tremble violently under the covers. 

“Are you cold?”

He nodded, shakily. He attempted a smile: “...’s fine. I’m not-”

A ring of blue light flickered, for just a moment, around their joined hands. Wilhelm intervened before she could say anything: “Felix, no! You don’t have that kind of energy. Please, settle down.”

He shook his head: “I’m not done!”

“Stop that. Please, stop that.” she said, pulling him closer to the edge of the bed.

“I’m not done!”

She had never felt prepared for anything for as long as she could remember. At that moment, she had no idea what to do. 

“Sssh…” she murmured.

Wilhelm came to their side to hold him by the shoulders: “Settle down, boy. Please.”

“I’m not-” 

He was cut off by a violent bout of coughing. The old man took the opportunity to pull him up to a seating position against the headboard. More than that, he took the opportunity to do exactly what he’d promised.

“Felix, I’m sorry.” he started, “I am so sorry you’re the one in this condition. If I had the option to trade places with you, I would do so in a heartbeat. I hope you know that.”

Felix shook his head, but it didn’t stop Wilhelm: “We will find whoever did this before they can cause further harm. But for now, you need to rest.”

“I’m- I’m not done. I’m not done! Let me go, I’m not done!”

He pushed against the hands on his shoulders, but Wilhelm was stronger than him with or without a curse to his advantage. When he wouldn’t stop struggling, the old man pulled him to his chest instead, pinning the delirious knight’s arms at his sides. For some reason, that seemed to calm him down.

It wasn’t the good kind of calm, though. It was the kind of calm obtained only through a realisation that shattered something inside him. He let his head fall on Wilhelm’s shoulder.

“I’m not…” he murmured, “I’m not going to live, am I?”

The way Wilhelm’s grip went rigid was apparently enough to answer his question: “Oh. Makes sense.”

For the first time in several hours, Crusch felt his grip on her hand loosen enough that she could pull it away without effort. She held it anyway. 

Wilhelm let go of Felix’s arms, but he made no attempt whatsoever to move from his shoulder. Quite the opposite. He brought one trembling arm up to return the pseudo-hug and moved his hand to hold Crusch’s hand closer to himself. 

His hand was already shaking. That’s why she didn’t notice it immediately when the rest of him began to tremble as well. 

Not until he repeated, once again: “I’m not done.”

His voice cracked. 

She didn’t quite figure out who he was talking to until he turned to her, eyes to misty eyes, and said: “I couldn’t help you.”

The words came out before she could even think of them, that time.

“But you did.” she smiled, “So many times. Every time you could do something, you did it. I don't know much, but I know that. Thank you, Felix.”

He didn’t take it as well as she would’ve liked him to. Her smile was just the final push he needed to burst into tears. 

She saw Wilhelm’s shoulders go stiff when the tears seeped into his jacket. Why, she didn’t know, until she absent-mindedly brushed one away from Felix’s cheek.

Even his tears were ice cold.

Another hour passed by in near-complete silence. Occasionally, Felix would speak up about one thing or another, whatever popped into his delirious mind. According to everyone who knew him, he’d never had much of a filter, but whatever filter was there had been swept away the moment he’d started coughing. 

He had, eventually, regained enough calm to lie down again, but not for very long. He looked more dead than alive. A shiver shook him from the inside out and he was clinging to her hand again. 

If the icy grip wasn’t enough, what Felix said next froze the blood in her veins.

“It’s almost time.” he mumbled, staring at the ceiling above him. 

For once, she was the first to move. She sat on the edge of the bed, leaving her chair for the first time in hours, and pulled him up so that his head was resting on her shoulder. 

She didn’t know why she’d done that. The cold was becoming unbearable by the second, seeping into her bones the tighter she held him, but for some reason it didn’t matter anymore. One hand around his waist, the other pressed against the back of his head, she held him as close as she could. 

His breath was icy, too. But the smile she could feel from where his cheek rested against her shoulder was anything but cold. It was scorching hot compared to his arms. So was whatever was rolling down her cheek, unprompted and uninvited; it burned her eye and marked her heart, but it was more than she’d felt in days.

He locked his hands behind her back.

“You’re warm.” he whispered.

He never spoke again. 

The tear that still itched in her eye was the only one she shed that day. It was strange. She had expected many or none at all, and yet there she was. 

Neither she nor Wilhelm left the room until long after dark, though Subaru did stop by at one point. It was actually rather convenient for them. They weren’t especially eager to give the news to the rest of the mansion’s inhabitants. Or to say the words at all.

Even between the two of them, there was a lingering sense of dread tied to those words:  _ he is dead _ . It felt wrong to say it. Like if they just held off on declaring it long enough, it would stop being true. 

Several hours passed them by. After Subaru’s visit, they felt it unnecessary to let anyone else inside the room. The news was out, after all.

The air became too still to breathe a few minutes after midnight. 

It was heavy from hours of trying to heat up the room in any way possible: the kettle, the closed windows, everything they could think of, and yet Crusch still felt that pervasive, all-encompassing cold that lingered around the body. She shivered in her heavy military coat.

“This season…” she mumbled, “It’s not supposed to be this cold. Is it?”

Wilhelm looked at her for a moment before answering.

“No, it isn’t.”

It wasn’t until the next morning that the other body was found.

Subaru Natsuki. Guest, ally and newly risen hero, Subaru Natsuki. It was Lady Emilia who found him. According to what she told them once she’d calmed down enough, she had entered the room to wake him when noon was approaching. 

“I was worried.” she said, “I couldn’t get a hold of him at all after he left to go see you. I heard he went to bed afterwards, so I left him alone then, but…”

She trailed off. In fact, she didn’t speak again until much later, when someone found their prime suspect. There were no wounds, no sign that Subaru was ever hurt, no clue as to what could have happened except for the vial that was found on the floor. A single drop of its original contents remained inside: a drop of almost glowing blue liquid that the nearest healer immediately identified as a sleeping draught. More than that, he identified its maker as well.

“This looks like the one Ludwig makes.” he commented, turning the vial over in his hands. He sniffed the top of the vial and winced: “Oh, yes. Definitely. No one else makes sleeping drugs this potent. I couldn’t be sure, but… I did see him talking to Mr Natsuki yesterday night.”

Something sparked in Wilhelm’s eyes: “Did you, now? If I didn’t know any better, I would say that’s incriminating.”

He turned to Crusch, then, like she was supposed to know what to do. She didn’t, and he realised that not half a second later. He looked back at the healer and said: “I think we ought to have a talk with him.”

That was when Lady Emilia finally spoke up: “Where is this man now?”

“Doing his job, as far as I know.”

“That’s good for his case, at least.” murmured Crusch, “Not running away is a start. But it’s easy enough to use it as an excuse.”

A shiver ran through Emilia: “We have to talk to him as soon as possible. If rumours spread too much, they’ll drown out the truth.”

She was right. If they stalled, and the man was blamed without a fair investigation, there would be no saving him whether he was guilty or not. Stressful times made people itch for answers. Or a scapegoat. To a legion of anxious, paranoid soldiers, there was no difference between the two. 

They found the man working, as they were told, only a little too late to avoid the gaggle of suspicious knights and healers that had approached him.

They scattered quickly enough when they noticed Crusch and Wilhelm coming with Lady Emilia in tow. That was when the healer, Ludwig, turned to them.

"My… my lady…" he stuttered, taking the deepest bow he could manage while staying on his feet: "I can ex… no, I can’t explain, but- but I'm innocent, I assure you!"

"Calm down." she told him, "We aren't here to arrest you. We'd like to hear your account. Is it true you provided the sleeping medicine that was found on Natsuki Subaru?"

The man went pale.

"Yes." he admitted, through clenched teeth.

Emilia piped up behind her: "And could that medicine have killed him?"

"If he took too much… yes."

His eyes darted around the room, following the whispers of the scarce crowd that had formed in the meantime.

"But-" he hurriedly added, "But I warned him about it! I specifically told him not to drink more than two drops. The amount at which it becomes effective is one drop and the amount at which it starts to become toxic is four. How much did he drink?"

"The whole thing." said Wilhelm.

If Ludwig was pale before, it was nothing compared to the look on his face: " _ What _ ?" he whispered.

"The whole thing." Wilhelm repeated, "Safe for the one or two drops that allowed us to identify the potion."

His hands were beginning to clench at his sides. It wasn’t good. It didn’t take a mind-reader to see the accusations were starting to sway him.

Crusch made sure to give him a good sidelong glance that said:  _ wait. _

Out loud, instead, she asked: "Would you give us a more detailed account?"

"Why did you give Subaru that medicine in the first place?" Emilia chimed in. A good question. Seeing the healer's face, she added: "I just want to know. Did he ask you for it?"

"Yes." he replied, slightly reassured by her apparent calm: "He came to me last night, looking very upset and tired. He claimed to be prone to horrible nightmares and he told me he had…" his voice dropped, "...seen Sir Felix's… remains."

Wilhelm visibly flinched.

"He asked me if I had anything that could ease his sleep. It's true, I was the one who gave him the medicine, but only because he asked me for some. I told him exactly how much he should drink and what would happen if he drank too much. I don’t…" his voice shook with confusion and fear, "I don't understand why he didn’t listen, but I swear on my life, I warned him!"

He was on his knees before they knew it: "My loyalty is not in question, is it? Your allies are mine, my lady. I would never compromise your alliances."

Before anyone could answer him, he turned to Emilia: "And you as well, Lady Emilia. I would never intentionally bring you or your camp harm. I am deeply sorry for what happened to your attendant and I wish I had refused him the medicine, but I swear on anything you want, I never intended to harm him."

Emilia almost flinched when he looked her in the eyes. Immediately, she averted hers. The whispers of the crowd died down to nothing as they waited, with bated breath, for her response. Crusch kept her eyes on her as a signal.

_ It's up to you. _

_ If you believe him, we have no reason to prosecute him. _

Finally, the lady looked back at him. Right in the eyes. 

A pause.

Her breath shook: "You're telling the truth. I believe you."

The man folded into a shell on the ground. He was already kneeling before, but he bended until his knees were touching his chest, breathing a shaky sigh of pure relief: "Thank you. Thank you, my lady."

She just nodded. She didn’t have time to do anything else. Caught by a sudden shiver, she left the room in a hurry.

Crusch turned to Wilhelm: "What could have happened?"

"I don't know." he mumbled, rubbing the bridge of his nose, "I really don't know."

The funeral for Subaru was two days later, back at the Mathers domain. The funeral for Felix was three days later, at their own mansion. It was inconvenient for the attendants, but no one wanted them to be elsewhere. They both belonged to one place above all, for very different reasons: Felix’s only indisputable home, versus the only place Subaru seemed to consider anything close to home in the foreign country he'd found himself in. 

Crusch tuned out most of the noise around her. She did, however, listen to what everyone had to say about the dead and to everyone who approached her directly to offer their condolences. Knights, servants, villagers, and even two of the royal candidates. Lady Emilia, of course, was there, but a different lady showed up on the day of the funerals, much younger than either of them, accompanied by a knight with ruby red hair.

Though Crusch had the impression that it was the knight who was being accompanied to the ceremony. That impression was all but confirmed when she looked at the two of them and their respective emotional states throughout. Sure, she looked somewhat sad, but there was something desperately mournful in the knight’s demeanor. 

He joined another knight and a boy by the grave. They shared their elegant features and light purple hair, so she could only assume they were there together. Once again, though, while the boy looked upset, the knight was trembling with despair. 

It made her heart sink just looking at them. 

Everyone left before sundown on the third day. Everyone, except she and Wilhelm.

They stood silently at the grave, in contemplation. He turned to her, about ten minutes after everyone else had left: "My wife's grave is nearby. I think I ought to visit her, too. I promised I'd do it more often."

"Of course." she nodded.

"I won't be long."

"You may take as long as you wish."

The idea seemed to make him nervous, but he walked off on the path that stretched between the graves. Crusch felt the urge to sit down and talk to the one in front of her.

So she did.

"This is a nice spot. I hope you like it." she said, "Look, you're right under a tree. Maybe, if you'd like, we could plant some flowers here, too, so you can have the most beautiful grave. Do you like flowers? I never asked you that. I wish I had. I bet the old me would have known. I keep wondering if she would be as calm as I am now, or… I don’t know. But she loved you a lot, I can tell. And so do I. You did everything you could to help me, I hope you know that. I hope you understand that."

Silence.

"Ah, I wonder if she used to talk to graves out loud, too." she chuckled, nervously, "I wonder if she had graves to talk to."

The breeze blew almost playfully through her hair. She shivered.

"You know…" she murmured, "It's not that I don't miss you, but…"

She reached up to her shoulder, unconsciously. To the cold spot. The one where she could still feel Felix’s ice cold final embrace.

"...do you have to keep holding me?"

The cold spot tingled.

She watched the grave of so many of her missing pieces, and cold was all she could feel.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's 2am but once I finish writing a chapter I physically HAVE to post it.
> 
> I realise that these chapters keep getting longer but to be fair, I have a lot of delicious angst to work with.  
> And post-whale Crusch angst makes me sad :(
> 
> You're welcome, guys. I'm going to sleep now. :,)
> 
> -Rémy


	5. Coda #5: The Line of Fire (by Julius Euclius)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This is a coda to chapter 3 of Cold Tea.

The rumour reached him on his way back home. 

He wasn’t sure through what ways it had spread, but he knew from the moment he caught a group of knights throwing glances in his direction that it had to do with him. 

Thankfully, they weren't too opposed to telling him once he confronted them about it.

"My friend was stationed at the Crusch camp yesterday." one of them explained. His face turned to a sort of sympathetic sadness when he looked at Julius: "I heard her knight was cursed."

His heart stopped.

"Cursed?" he repeated, "What do you mean,  _ cursed _ ?"

"That's all I heard."

"I heard he was ill." another knight chimed in, "But I don’t know much about curses. It could be nothing."

Julius felt his breath itch in his lungs: "Curses are never  _ nothing _ ." he murmured, taking a few steps away from the group. His mind was made up.

Without hesitation, he went searching for pen and paper and scrawled out a few choice words for his lady. He entrusted the letter, and command of their squadron, to one of the veteran knights, and rode off alone.

He had no time to lose.

It was late at night when he finally had the mansion in his sights. He wasn’t too worried about the guards. They knew him.

Before he could reach the gates, though, someone called out to him from his right: "Julius?"

He didn’t stop the ground dragon just to look around. Sticking out like a sore thumb, from the side of a carriage, he spotted unmistakable ruby red hair. Even in the dark, he would recognise him.

He swerved a bit to ride beside the carriage.

"Reinhard. You're here too?"

Reinhard frowned, in that impossibly compassionate way he always did: "I heard a rumour and it worried me."

Julius looked away.

"If it was about Felix, I'm afraid we heard the same rumour." 

His friend hung his head. Behind him, inside the carriage, Julius could just barely make out another figure, small and clad in yellow and seemingly asleep.

He took care to lower his voice: "You have your lady with you?"

"Of course." nodded Reinhard, "She needs a lot of supervision, these days. Besides, she couldn’t wait to go out somewhere. She wouldn't allow me to go unless I took her with me."

His heart sank a little: "It's good to see she's growing accustomed to you."

They reached the gate a few minutes past midnight.

Julius knew they were too late before the guards said a single word. They just cringed at them, in a mix of sympathy and dread, probably thinking that there was only one reason the three of them could be there at that time of night.

"I'm sorry." said one of them, braver than his companions, "You're too late. We lost him only a few hours ago."

He heard Reinhard gasp beside him, but he couldn’t bring himself to have a similar reaction. He already knew, after all. His heart felt heavy. His stomach felt tight. His head felt like it could float away at any moment.

He jumped off the ground dragon’s back, leaving it in the care of a page. He knew what they were going to hear. That did not imply he knew how to respond to it.

"My deepest condolences." he said, though the guards' looks suggested that they thought  _ him _ more worthy of condolences, "Is there any way we could…"

"No." one of them interrupted, "No one's allowed to see him, for now. Tomorrow."

His stomach dropped: "I understand."

When he turned to Reinhard, he found him still leaning out the carriage window. His head was buried in his elbow.

"Reinhard?" he called, quietly, but his friend gave no sign of hearing him.

One of the guards had gone inside to look for Lady Crusch, the other stared at Julius as if begging him to get Reinhard out of the carriage so they could move it to a more comfortable place.

Fortunately, he didn’t have to try again.

A shifting movement inside the carriage snapped the red-haired knight back to attention.

"Wuh… why'd we stop? We there yet?" mumbled a voice behind him.

Reinhard raised his head, hurriedly wiping his eye with the cuff of his sleeve: "We have arrived, my lady." he declared. He was so obviously trying to keep his tone light and so obviously failing.

Felt noticed it, of course: "What? You look like a kicked puppy. What's wrong?"

"It's nothing you need to worry about." he assured her, "I've just received the news that… that we got here a little too late."

The guard beside him visibly paled at the profanity the girl uttered in response, but Reinhard seemingly couldn't find it in his heart to scold her.

"Oh, shit. Damn, I'm sorry. You wanna go inside?" she asked him.

There was no sarcasm or bite to her tone. Reinhard smiled back at her: "Lady Crusch will be here soon. We  _ will _ need to ask for hospitality."

"Yeah, sure. I'm getting out of this thing. If you wanna have a good cry in here, feel free. I'm not gonna run away, promise."

"Oh, no. It's fine."

He opened the door for her. Her hair was mussed from sleeping in a carriage and she had so clearly been dressed in a hurry, but she already seemed somewhat ladylike compared to the last time he'd seen her. Julius gave her a polite bow: "Lady Felt. Thank you for permitting Reinhard to come here. It means more to him than he's willing to tell you."

Reinhard shot him a sideways glance.

"Yeah." was her awkward, laconic response. Before she could form a better reply, or do anything for that matter, the sound of footsteps in the gravel announced the timely arrival of Lady Crusch, accompanied by Wilhelm and, for some reason, Lady Emilia.

All three of them were fully dressed and must have been awake for a day at least.

"Welcome." greeted Lady Crusch, but her fierce expression wavered when she looked at them. 

Lady Emilia stepped up to the plate: "Lady Felt, welcome. Julius, Reinhard…"

The two knights bowed in unison.

Lady Felt stepped forward to greet them in a strangely polite fashion: "Hello. My knight tells me there's been a death here. I'm sorry."

The three grew visibly uncomfortable.

"I suppose you heard about Felix." murmured Sir Wilhelm.

"We did." said Julius, "By coincidence, we arrived at the same time."

He knelt in front of the three ladies and the old gentleman: "My deepest condolences. I wish I had heard the news sooner."

"Rise." Lady Crusch commanded, "There is no need for formalities, Sir…"

Her eyes shifted sideways, to Wilhelm. They silently asked for help.

"Julius Euclius." he introduced himself, "Forgive me. I'm afraid the news had me quite shaken. I must admit I had forgotten about your... predicament."

She looked at Reinhard. He only bowed his head: "Reinhard Van Astrea, my lady."

" _ Van Astrea _ ..." she repeated, glancing to the side again, but she shook her head and returned her attention to the still kneeling Julius: "Nevermind. Rise, sir."

As he stood up, he could've sworn he heard a noise come from behind the nearest corner of the mansion. When no one else reacted, he decided to leave it be.

"I apologise." he repeated. Forgetting about the lady's amnesia was decidedly not a step in the right direction.

"I understand, the current situation is… confusing, to say the least." she nodded. Her gaze softened a bit: "My condolences to you, too. Felix told me he had friends in other camps. I should have sent the news out to you, but I see there was no need for that."

Met with a heavy silence, she changed the subject: "But forgive me, it's quite cold out here, isn’t it? You must be exhausted. Please, come inside. We can discuss this further tomorrow."

As they all began to walk back inside, though, Julius felt the sudden, pressing need to walk further into the garden instead. He wasn’t sure why, but when he got such strong, inexplicable feelings, it had always done him good to listen.

Spirits weren’t prone to mindless chatter.

He bowed his head: "Many pardons, my ladies, but I'm afraid I need to stay out here for a while longer. If it's not too much trouble, I… I could use a short walk."

"Of course." Lady Crusch nodded, "I'll have a room ready for you. I do hope we can find enough of them, we’re a bit… full, at the moment. You may have to share."

"That is fine. Thank you, Lady Crusch."

Lady Emilia gave a compassionate frown: "Take care, Julius. Don't go too far."

"I won't. Thank you."

He didn’t need to. He wasn’t sure what he was looking for, but he knew he would find it within the confines of the garden. 

As he walked away towards that corner of the mansion that seemed to be calling to him, he could feel Reinhard’s eyes on his back.

He closed his eyes just long enough to have a word with the spirits around him.

The first thing he heard wasn’t surprising.

_ Dead! _ exclaimed a spirit beside him.

The second thing he heard was far more worrying.

_ He jumped! _

As was the third.

_ She is angry! _

Who? Who was  _ he _ and who was  _ she _ and why did he feel like the answer to all that was just past that corner?

Carefully, he peeked around the corner.

Initially, he couldn’t see much. It was all too dark. But his eyes adjusted quickly, and soon, he could make out the unmistakable shape of a human arm.

A leg, snapped in half.

A torso, with broken twigs sticking out from the side.

A head, bashed in to the ground below. A very familiar head.

His feet moved before he could control them: "Su-"

His suspicions were confirmed when he was standing above the body. The hair, his build, the clothes…

He had found the fresh remains of Subaru Natsuki.

For a longer time than he would care to admit, he stood frozen there. What was he meant to do? Try to help? Subaru was long dead. There was no way he had survived the fall; his head was caved in and his chest wasn't moving at all.

But running inside to give the announcement and just leaving him there didn't feel right. His brain seemed to move faster than before as his panicked mind tried to make a choice. He knelt beside Subaru without a second thought, but his hands still hovered. Above the myriad of voices screaming in his head, he almost didn't hear the voice of the spirit beside him.

_ Watch out! _

Too late. Before he could move, he felt the air on his back shift and something unmistakably cold and sharp against his neck.

"It wasn’t me." lamented a sultry voice behind him, "He jumped off just so I wouldn’t get him, and now his guts are all squished up."

Guts.

It must have been  _ her. _

There were no words to describe the flood of emotions that grasped his heart at that moment. There were simply too many.

But one stuck out above the rest.

"Are you the one who killed Subaru?" he asked, and his voice shook with anger.

As soon as she heard his voice rising, she pressed the blade down harder: "Scream and you'll be the last to die. That's against your knightly code, isn’t it? Putting others in danger."

His heart jumped with an unholy mix of fear and anger. He took care to lower his voice: "It's against more than that. But I asked you a question. Are you the one who killed Subaru?"

The one behind him sighed almost impatiently: "No, I just told you. It wasn’t me. He did that all by himself."

"You were going to kill him."

"Well, of course." she chuckled. When she knelt behind him, he could feel her breath on his back: "But tell me, if he didn't want to die, why do you think he was standing on the roof, so close to the edge that a wisp of wind could have pushed him off?"

His heart wavered. Why  _ was _ Subaru up there? What was he doing? It seemed no one even knew he'd been up there.

But that was beside the point. Whatever he was doing up there, she had attacked him. It was still her fault.

"I don't care why he was up there." he lied, "Why were  _ you _ there?"

"Can't a girl go watch the stars in peace?"

"Not wielding a knife like this." 

She tutted disapprovingly. He held back a shiver when she got close enough to feel her breath against his neck: "You came here at the wrong time. You poor dear. I pity you. Two minutes later, and you wouldn't have found me." she mused, sliding the blade back and forth against his throat like she wanted to play the violin with his vocal cords. The skin broke, at some point, but he could barely feel it.

"Stand up." 

She didn't give him time to follow or refuse the command. With a harsh tug on his hair and a final little cut on the side of his neck, she pulled him away from the body.

He knew who she was. But, if a witness was her problem, he could still claim deniability. Then again, he doubted that was the case, but if he stalled, maybe… 

_ If I live, I can report this. _

"I haven't seen your face." he said.

"Oh?"

He closed his eyes when he felt her begin to move around to face him. She wasn't too amused: "Closing your eyes? That's a little childish. Don't you think?"

"If I don't see you, I can’t report you." he pointed out.

He could almost  _ hear _ her smile.

"Oh, is that what this is? You want to get out of this  _ witness _ thing? Well, sure. Let's see how long you can keep your eyes closed. I can humour you, for a while."

The corners of his lips twisted up a little: "You'll find I have experience with keeping my eyes closed in the face of a monster."

She gasped, more for show than offense. She had clearly heard that one before.

" _ Monster _ ? Why, I ought to kill you just for that one."

His eyes remained closed, but his fury was beginning to boil to the surface: "You talk as if you're going to let me live if I stay quiet. But if you cared about not being found here, then…"

_ You wouldn't have attacked Subaru like that. _

"You know I hadn't seen you there. No one was killed with your usual method. You could have easily walked away and I would have been none the wiser to what happened."

She laughed.

"You're clever."

The knife moved down, stopping at the level of his elbows. She pressed the tip into his right side until she broke the skin. That was her target.

His heart began to race. 

The Bowel Hunter did not leave witnesses behind. She didn't need to. Her modus operandi, itself, was a calling card.

She leaned in, close enough to breathe against his forehead.

"I don't have the order to kill you." she sighed, "But I don’t have the order not to. You have such a pretty face, I just have to wonder if the inside matches the outside."

He gave the body at his feet a silent apology.

_ It looks like she might get away, Subaru _ .

Just as the blade started to press down harder, though, it was gone. He opened his eyes just in time to see a dark-haired woman jump back as far as her agile body would allow to dodge the knife that sliced through the air from somewhere behind him.

She perched herself on top of the gate: "Ah, you again…" she sighed.

_ Reinhard. _

Sure enough, his friend emerged from behind the corner not a second later and placed himself in front of him. The Dragon Sword, brimming with furious energy, was pointed straight at the assassin.

"Why are you here?" growled Reinhard, clearly not expecting an answer.

But she gave it anyway.

"I had a job to do. My work here is done now. Farewell, sir."

Before Reinhard could target her a second time, she vanished into the woods. 

The tension in his muscles melted all at once. He just barely managed to contain himself so that, instead of dropping to the floor, he just let his shoulders fall with a sigh of relief.

"Thank you, Reinhard."

When his friend didn't answer him, he turned to look at him, only to find him holding himself up against a wall by one trembling arm. It seemed he wasn't as successful in displaying calm in the face of danger.

Julius walked over, without touching him: "Reinhard. Are you alright?"

Soon enough, one blue eye looked up at him from over Reinhard’s elbow.

"You're asking  _ me _ that? For goodness' sake, Julius! What were you thinking? Did you know there was…" he hesitated.

_ A corpse. _

"... _ this _ , here? Why would you go alone?"

Of course, he knew his words were purely out of concern. Still, he couldn’t help the sting of irritation in his chest: "Forgive me for not feeling up to conversation at a time like that."

He stared down Subaru’s body, a few feet behind him: "Or now, for that matter. I… Reinhard, she said he was on the edge of the roof. Why was he up there?"

Reinhard’s voice dropped: "He was? I don’t know why. I haven’t seen him in so long. Was he alright the last time you saw him?"

" _ Alright _ …" mused Julius, "He looked happier than I'd ever seen him. I can’t see why he would want to…"

"We can't know that."

"Of course. I'm not… too eager to give the news." he admitted. A shiver crawled up his spine. How was he meant to walk into a mansion of grief and add fuel to the fire? He could think of at least three or four people, off the top of his head, who would take the news poorly.

Reinhard gave him a sympathetic look: "I'm sorry you had to see this. I know you don't do well with that."

His smile faded right away, though, replaced by a lip that trembled violently in an attempt to twist into a frown. Reinhard didn't seem too keen on allowing himself to frown, though. He looked almost fine when he placed a hand on Julius’s shoulder, except that he was squeezing so tight he could feel his skin going white under his fingers.

Still, the look in his eyes was one of pure sadness when he spoke: "We can go back now. I don’t… you've been in enough… I can’t…"

"Ease up."

"What?"

"Ease up. You look more frightened than I felt. You're hurting me."

Reinhard pulled his hand away like it had been burnt: "Forgive me."

"There's nothing to forgive. This has been a difficult night for you. We can go back if you want. I'll give the news."

His friend shook his head: "You're doing it again."

Before Julius could ask him what he was referring to, he was already sitting against the wall, burying his face in one hand. He felt a rush of panic in his lungs: "Reinhard?"

"I've lost two of my friends today."

His heart sank. That was true.

"More accurately, I've  _ failed _ two of my friends."

That wasn't true.

"Reinhard-" he started, but he cut himself off when he saw the look in his blue eyes.

"Don't."

_ Oh, no, you will not. _

Fueled by the gentlest kind of rage there is, Julius pressed on: "It's true. You've lost two of your friends today. And so have I. But don't think for a  _ moment _ that I'll allow you or anyone else to blame you for that."

Reinhard shook his head: "I've failed two of my friends, Julius." he insisted.

"And saved another." he pointed out, and Reinhard flinched: "Don't forget that. I certainly won't."

He was sure the discussion would have continued for longer, were it not for the sound of hurried footsteps in the grass.

The first to arrive, unfortunately, was Lady Emilia. She spotted them just before turning the corner: "Are you alright? You were gone for a-"

She cut herself off, standing frozen beside them, when Julius’s attempt to prevent her from turning the corner failed. Whatever spark was in her eyes before, it died.

Lady Felt, hampered by shoes she still wasn’t used to, nearly slammed into her: "Hey!! What's the big idea, lady?"

Reinhard stood up faster than any of them had ever seen him do, putting himself between the two girls and the body behind him: "Forgive me, Lady Felt. I don’t think you should see this."

For some reason, that actually seemed to scare the girl.

"W… but why?" she stuttered, "Why not? What's there? Is everything okay back there?"

"No." Julius murmured before he could stop himself, unintentionally drawing her attention to him.

"Hey, why's he bleeding? Didja have a fight or something?"

"Not between the two of us." he clarified when Reinhard hesitated to answer. He turned to Emilia just in time to see her push past Reinhard and run straight for the body behind him.

"Wait!" the knight pleaded, but she was already there.

And already trying to heal wounds that no one could ever survive.

" _ Subaru!! _ " she cried, "Subaru, Subaru, Subaru, Subaru…"

Her scream dissolved into a panicked muttering, repeating his name over and over, as she frantically searched for a solution that didn't exist.

"Why…" she whispered, "Why are you here? Were you even in that room? Was I even talking to you? Why are you out here now?"

She looked up at Julius with tears streaming down her face and he wanted to disappear: "What happened to him?"

He took too long to answer. Emilia’s panicked expression turned angry in the blink of an eye: “What happened to him? Answer me!”

“I d-”

“He just found him.” Reinhard intervened, “I’m very sorry. I will explain everything, in due time, but please, my lady, we need-”   
“No…” she sobbed, shaking her head against Subaru’s shoulder. “No, I don’t wanna go! I won't leave him alone, I won't leave him, I can’t leave him, I shouldn't have left him alone, I should've stayed with him, if I had-"

"Stop."

Emilia let out a choked gasp at the hand that set on her shoulder.

Of all the people in the garden, only one had found the courage to walk up to her in the most visceral moment of her grief.

"Stop that." Crusch repeated, gently but firmly, prying one of Emilia's hands from Subaru’s mangled body. She knelt next to her, one hand around her wrist, the other rubbing a circle into her shoulder.

Emilia still shook with quiet sobs, but at least she seemed to be breathing more regularly.

She made one last, weak attempt at her argument: "I shouldn't have left him…" she whimpered.

Crusch wasn’t deterred: "But you didn't. I saw you earlier." she started, "You went up to his room with a tray of food. I saw you in the kitchen, discussing exactly what you wanted on it for twenty minutes, even though you were so clearly uncomfortable with so many people around. I heard you talk to Wilhelm, say you would bring everyone's best wishes. I know he told you to tell him that it wasn't his fault, because he did his best, and I know you agreed with him. Do you not see how you're dragging the same chains?"

"I…"

"If you want to agree with a universal statement, then it has to apply to you, too. If it doesn't apply to you, it doesn't apply to any of us. Do you hold everyone here responsible, Lady Emilia?"

"No!!" she sobbed, "Of course not!"

"Then you have no right to hold yourself accountable, either. If you, who did everything to help him, are guilty, then everyone here is."

Emilia went silent for a moment. It seemed as though she had stopped crying entirely. 

It was merely the calm before the storm.

Her shoulders began to shake and she collapsed into Crusch's arms, wailing her sorrow to the night sky.

It took twenty minutes to calm her down, and Crusch held her without complaint the entire time.

"I'm so sorry I snapped at you."

That was the first thing Emilia said to him, directly, after she'd finally regained the ability to breathe normally. Her voice was still rough from screaming. 

Subaru’s body had been respectfully covered and moved away, without much resistance from her. They had all retreated to the parlour with tea, which had certainly helped the persistent cold he felt lingered in the air, but also had the side effect of heating up their emotions all over again. Reinhard had already excused himself to the corridor, and they had all silently agreed not to tell him they could hear his quiet sobs now and then. Felt sat in a manner that could only be described as  _ improper _ , curled up against the arm of a divan and half asleep once again, and no one would scold her for it.

Crusch and Wilhelm were conversing too quietly for him to hear what they were saying, and Julius himself, after being healed of a few minor injuries, had been sitting by the window on his own. Until Lady Emilia had come up to him, of course.

She was apologising for making him feel uncomfortable. For some reason, it made him feel even worse. And the way her eyes were drawn to the collar of his shirt, still stained with blood long after the skin was repaired,  _ that _ may have been the worst.

He bowed his head: "I accept your apology, Lady Emilia, though I don't think it was necessary." 

"It was." she insisted, "Some part of me knew you were upset, too. I put my need for answers above your… well, everything, and I have to own up to that. I'm sorry."

He felt almost desperate to end that conversation: "As I said, I have accepted your apology. No further action is necessary."

Emilia nodded, but she lingered next to him, like there was something else she wanted to say.

He raised his brow: "Is there anything you'd like to tell me?"

"Yes." she admitted, clearly relieved, "I have to ask you something, actually. Please, feel free to say no."

He was starting to get worried.

"What is it?"

"Well… earlier, Reinhard said he would explain what happened once I calmed down. But right now, he's…"

"Ah."

"I know you were there first, and I know it's a lot, but…"

"No, it's fine." he lied, "I don't mind discussing it."

Maybe if he kept saying it, over and over, one of those times it would be true.

“It’s fine.” he repeated, quietly, “It’s fine.”

Her brow furrowed in suspicion: “You said it three times.”

“I can say it again.”

“No need.” Emilia backed away a little, “I’ll come back another time. Or ask someone else. Don’t worry about it.”

“Wait-” he tried, but she had already fled to the other side of the room. And he was alone again. 

He left the room not three minutes later, when he was sure he couldn’t hear Reinhard through the wall anymore. Indeed, he wasn’t crying when he found him, though the redness of his eyes betrayed him.

"Julius." he greeted, clearly trying to avert his eyes with a demeanor that screamed  _ don't ask me if I was crying, don't ask. _

So he didn’t.

"Reinhard. How do you feel? You've been out here for some time now."

"Have I?"

"Yes."

"I'm sorry."

He sat next to his friend, close enough to give him companionship, far enough to give him space: "You didn't answer my question. How are you feeling?"

Reinhard took his time to answer.

"Not much better." he admitted, "But I don’t feel  _ worse _ , at least."

"That's good."

He paused for a second. His blue eyes darted between the window and the two sides of the deserted corridor. When he confirmed they were alone, he finally spoke up: "Julius, you said something, earlier."

"What, exactly?"

"You said I looked more frightened than you felt." he frowned, "I couldn't tell you why or how that upset me, but…"

"If I upset you, I apologise-" he tried, but Reinhard interrupted him.

"No, hush, Julius, that is not the point I was trying to get at." he sighed, "You're quick to apologies, are you? Either way, the thing is… yes. I  _ was _ frightened. I didn’t just  _ look _ frightened, I  _ was. _ Terrified, even. I was a second away from having to watch yet another friend die. If you had died, that would've been it for  _ you _ , but  _ me _ ? What would I have done? What  _ could  _ I have done? What would've been left for me, but a horrible day and more blood on my hands, more blame, more grief, more of  _ this _ damnation? Damn it all, Julius, I have all the power in the world and my friends  _ still _ die young!! What is all this for, then, if I can't even protect two or three people? How am I meant to protect an entire kingdom, if I can’t do that?"

Somewhere down the line, his whispers had turned to screams and his melancholy had turned to anger. He had stood from his seat without realising it, standing directly in front of Julius, gesturing wildly to exorcise even more of those terrible emotions that he never allowed himself to feel. 

It all crashed down on him the moment the hallway went silent again. When the echo of his own outburst reached his ears, he took at least two steps back just on instinct, and a third after Julius finally made eye contact again.

"You can't have all that on your shoulders, Reinhard." he said, softly, "Come, sit next to me. And don't look at me like I'm made of glass. It's unnerving."

"I don't-"

"-think me that fragile? You've been walking on eggshells since the moment you saved me. Sit down."

Reinhard complied, halfway between offended by the command and desperate to follow it. He sat a little closer than before. Neither of them brought it up.

"Listen…" Julius started, "The kind of responsibility you're trying to take is going to crush you into something unrecognisable at this rate. You're already paper thin. I don’t know what possessed you to think you couldn't come to me right away with this, but I can tell you this much: no one in that room would presume to blame you for crying. No one in that room would blame you for shouting, either. Lady Emilia just apologised for yelling at me earlier and it was worse than if she hadn't. Reinhard, I can’t tell you how much it saddens me to see you like this. You needed to cry and scream so desperately, and I have a feeling you still do, and you're denying yourself that. Why?"

Reinhard didn't answer immediately.

"You're not crying…" he murmured, "No one was crying anymore."

"So? Just because we aren't crying, it doesn't mean we're not grieving. Just because I'm talking to you like this, it doesn't mean I'm not angry. Do you want me to be honest with you? Will that make you feel better about being honest with me?"

He didn’t speak, but everything about him said  _ yes _ , even before he gave a shy nod of his head.

Julius breathed in, deeply: "Alright."

He paused for a moment.

The gates were open.

"I'm angry. I'm furious. I'm furious with whoever it was who cursed Felix, I wish I knew who it was and why so I could make sense of this. My best guess is someone related to the Bowel Hunter; she said she had a job here, and it didn't seem to involve Subaru directly, but curses are not her style. I'm furious with her, too. I feel my heart sinking further and further, and every time I think it can’t get worse, it does. It sinks down even further and I'm starting to lose sight of the surface. They were not done with this world, neither of them, and I wasn't done with them. Felix lent me his handkerchief the last time I saw him and now I can't return it to him. I was already writing a letter to Subaru to follow up on our last conversation, but now there's no point in finishing it. I excused myself to come here, without much warning, and I know my lady has been kind to me, but sometimes I fear one day she'll stop being so lenient, and what's more, I will agree with her. I did that, and I got here too late to even  _ talk _ to them again, and now I'm sitting next to my friend who needs more help than I can give him and still insists he's alright."

It was the most liberating feeling he'd felt all night. It was pure, shameless relief. All that was left was for Reinhard to let himself feel the same.

He turned to Reinhard: "You need help. You  _ want _ help, too. Don't think I haven’t seen that. I feel weaker than ever, now. Do you? And does that bother you?"

Reinhard opened his mouth, closed it immediately, and did it again, and again, and again. It seemed like, every time he was close to finding the words he wanted to say, they just slipped away before he could grasp them. Finally, he sighed.

"I don't know how to answer you." he admitted, "I don't feel weak anymore. I feel like I made a mistake, even though I don't know what the mistake was. But right now, if there was danger, if she came back again, I don't feel like I wouldn’t be able to beat her. Earlier, I wanted to hit her with the Dragon Sword directly; I know she's a worthy opponent, I know I could draw it against her. But you were right in front of her."

Julius felt a pang of guilt in his chest: "I'm sorry for that."

"Stop that."

"Excuse me?"

"Stop apologising when I'm trying to talk to you." he mumbled, "Please, stop doing that. The point I was getting at is that I was terrified. I didn’t think I'd miss the shot, I never do, but what if I hadn't brought a second weapon? What if I'd thrown it a moment later? What if she'd seen me and, instead of just dodging, she had pulled you in front of her, just as I threw the knife? I am… so, so glad she didn't do that. That one is the worst image my mind can conjure, right now. I'm so glad I made it in time. But for some reason, I can’t stop thinking about what this evening would be like if I hadn't. I wouldn’t be talking to you right now. I would still be out here alone, I would still be crying, probably, and who would I turn to? I know I've said this, but Julius…" he smiled through bouts of hysterical breaths, "I am so, so happy you're alive. I am just… I don’t even know how to say this better. I'm just happy. I'm sad, and my chest feels empty, but I'm happy. This situation isn't the worst it could've been, I know that, believe me, I know that. But…"

He paused for a moment. His hands were shaking with the effort of breathing so erratically.

"...but what if it was? I hate that I can imagine it. I hate that I can see your dead body without even closing my eyes. I shouldn't be able to see that so clearly! I shouldn't be able to see all the different ways this evening could have turned into a massacre! Even now, I want to go back into the room just in case she comes back! I want to lock everyone in a big room with me so they can't go off and get themselves killed! I want to scream, but I don't want to walk away and I certainly don't want them to hear me."

He took a single, gasping breath and continued: "Every day I have to realise that I have everything but my life to lose. Even just with you, I could lose your life, your respect, your  _ memories _ , apparently!"

"Reinhard, you are a capable man and you can do a lot of things." said Julius, "But losing my respect isn't one of them. You would have to try very, very hard to even come close to that."

Reinhard’s shoulders slumped a bit: "And I cannot thank you enough for your faith in me, but not everyone is like you. There are people constantly waiting for me to make a mistake just so they can prove I'm not a god. And what bothers me most is that I never claimed to be one. I never claimed that. My aspirations aren't that high. I value every life, but the ones that understand that are the ones I can consider my friends. Julius…" he turned to him with almost pleading eyes: "I am begging you, as your friend. Don't ever be that reckless again. If you suspect something is happening, and I'm right there, please, just tell me. I will help you. Even if I'm not there, send for me. I'd rather inconvenience myself for a day than live the rest of my life knowing I could have saved yours."

Reinhard breathed in deeply.

"I'm so afraid." he admitted, under his breath, "I don't know how much I'll stay like this, but please, stop doing your best to get in trouble. For someone as clever as you, you can be very stupid sometimes."

"Hey, now."

"Oh, please, if I poisoned your drink in front of you and then swore up and down that it wasn't poison, you would drink it." he snapped.

Julius gave him an incredulous look: "Wouldn’t you?"

"I would, but if we both drank from that glass, only one of us would die and you know it." Reinhard deadpanned.

"That is completely beside the point!" he protested, "I understand your concern, but implying I'm naïve is going a step too far. Still, though." he sighed, letting his shoulders fall, "Thank you for being so considerate. I will not jump in the line of fire unless it's absolutely necessary."

Reinhard gave him a worried look: "I worry about your definition of  _ necessary _ sometimes. But I've decided to trust you, for the time being."

"Good."

They spent a minute or two in a silence that jumped carelessly between comfortable and uncomfortable. One moment, it was the best place they could have been; the next, any other place would have been suitable.

Finally, Reinhard found it in himself to speak up: "Uh… I have to tell you something."

"Yes?"

"You might have heard, there's not a lot of free rooms in this mansion. I talked to Lady Crusch and it sounds like you and I might have to share a room and I didn’t want to admit how relieved I feel that at least one person will be in my sights. But then… I just admitted it, didn't I?"

"Yes." said Julius, "But I don’t mind."

"It sounds even stranger when I say it out loud." muttered Reinhard, "Does it make sense? At all?"

"Reinhard, you are my friend and I would do anything for you, but you are also a fool if you think my opinion of you would change in the slightest just because you told me you're glad we're going to share a room. A poor fool." he sighed, shaking his head.

Reinhard frowned his usual compassionate frown: "That's not very nice of you."

"You asked me to be honest, not nice." he pointed out. That brought a vague semblance of a smile back to Reinhard’s face, though it was veiled with a persistent sorrow.

"That is true." he admitted, "Thank you for being honest with me, Julius. It isn’t always easy not to go easy on friends, is it?"

"No, it isn’t. But honesty is a valued virtue in a knight."

"And therefore you value it?"

"Highly. You would do well to remember that."

For some reason,  _ that _ seemed to do it. Reinhard’s face suddenly looked like he was taking him seriously. Tight-lipped and pale, with distant eyes, he nodded.

"I will remember that." he promised.

Reinhard fell asleep in minutes as soon as he was lying down. 

Julius did not.

He chalked it up to his internal clock not letting him fall asleep at almost four in the morning, but there was something else.

A question, first of all.

_ Why was Subaru on the roof? _

The answer came quickly enough.

_ I shouldn't take her word as gospel. _

But then, that wasn’t a real answer, was it?

He decided he would investigate further the next day. And tell everyone what he heard. If only he could sleep on it like everyone else seemed to be doing. But, again, there was something else that prevented him from sleeping.

A stinging sensation in his side, the fear of finding his hands red and slick whenever he touched his neck, the urge to get up and open every door just to see that everything was fine, the impulse to turn to Reinhard for help for no particular reason. And his complete unwillingness to look out the window.

He'd looked once, a few minutes after settling down in the spare bed he'd dragged into the room. He looked again, but there was nothing there anymore.

Earlier, in the darkness, he thought he'd seen something.

And it looked too much like the smiling face of a woman.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fun facts about the making of this chapter:  
> 1\. The author reread the last few chapters of Ayamatsu about an hour before brainstorming the plot of this chapter and it probably shows.  
> 2\. The author being sad about Ayamatsu and their favourite Ayamatsu related fic might have saved Julius some serious injuries.  
> 3\. Every angstier possibility I thought of was either indirectly referenced or directly mentioned by Reinhard in this chapter just so I wouldn't go back on my relatively happy idea of an ending and get to maybe kill or decommission Elsa but at the cost of a serious blow to Reinhard's already fragile sense of self-worth and yet another addition to my list of Ways To Murder Or Otherwise Maim Julius. I promise you I love the entire knight trio with my entire heart. I can also promise you that that's exactly why I can and will keep angsting all three of them.  
> 4\. The two Reinhard stans in the comments can pat themselves on the back for that because they definitely influenced me having a little mercy on both him and Julius and giving him a little therapy session. Congratulations, guys :,) you've made the friend-proclaimed Angst Empress have mercy :D  
> 5\. When I thought about it, the whole scene with Elsa was just her throwing out several compliments in preparation to killing Julius, and if that isn't sending mixed signals I have no idea what is.
> 
> This may have been my favourite chapter to write overall :)  
> As we've established from my many, many canon divergences, I adore scenes where things went relatively well but could've gone SO much worse with just a tiny change.
> 
> See you whenever I finish the next project, I hope :,) I have a clearer idea now but it's still pretty up-in-the-air.
> 
> -Rémy


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